Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,128

around us, but he spoke softly to me until my power calmed. “Perennia’s at peace now,” he said. “I helped put her to rest. She looked so beautiful. After all this, we’ll take her home with us.”

“I was worried that Ambrosine would trap or tame you and make you do her bidding,” I said through tears. I stepped back to look at him. He had braided his shoulder-length hair, which reminded me of Father.

“I cannot be trapped or tamed, Glissy. You should have known better.” He frowned up at the ruins of the edifice. “Is this where you’ve been hiding?”

Leave it Devorian to criticize the accommodations.

“It’s more than meets the eye.” I turned, smiling through sniffles, to greet Mercer. He scooped me off my feet into a fierce embrace.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said.

“So are you.”

When he set me down, I met the one eye that was golden-brown as wheaty ale. He looked grim, maybe even a little thinner than when I had seen him a fortnight ago. Long, unpleasant sea voyages could do that to the hardiest among us, but I knew it had more to do with worry.

“Valory?” I asked.

“I found her. She’s alive. But it’s…hard to explain.”

“We’re safe here,” I said. “Come inside and tell me everything.”

As we turned to descend, I found my way to Tilmorn for a quick embrace. He noticed my bloody bandage and placed his thumb in the hollow of my hand to heal me.

“Remember, not the scar,” I said.

Power surged from his murky gray elicrin stone and traveled under my skin, closing up my cut.

The old soldiers’ mouths dropped open. One of them found the courage to ask Tilmorn if he could heal the leg he had injured saving Navara’s grandfather from an assassination attempt. Tilmorn may not have understood his words, but he understood the nature of the request—he received the same everywhere he went. Beneath that stoic, intimidating exterior lived the heart of a Healer, which Melkior had never really possessed. Valory had done the right thing giving them each new gifts. In fact, Valory had done a lot of things right. But the world feared her and always would.

“Right this way,” I said, picking my sword from the overgrown grass and leading them down to the edifice. “I think you’ll be pleased by what you find.”

A Holy had not come, and Navara would be disappointed by that. But this was far better.

Kadri’s kidnapping had initially brought Devorian to Perispos. Rynna, who had barely survived the attack, had gathered that the kidnappers planned to take Kadri to Erdem. Devorian had immediately set sail with supplies to make a tracking map for Kadri on the way. He planned to meet up with us at the palace and send Perennia home so that he and I could search for Kadri together.

Mercer and Tilmorn had remained behind with Melkior and Fabian to continue fighting the invasion in the forest, but Mercer had quickly made a connection between the spreading disease and what was happening here in Perispos. Fabian and Melkior stayed behind in Nissera to govern and offer shelter to Rynna’s people as the rot spread and worsened. Mercer and Tilmorn had reached the Perispi shore a few hours ago, equipped with tracking maps for all three of us. They’d found Devorian first, who had departed from the palace and was materializing from village to village, asking about me. He had not been able to complete his tracking map for Kadri thanks to a storm that had covered the full moon at sea.

When the three of them reunited, they set out in search of Kadri, who appeared to be closest. According to the map, they had crossed paths with her but had never seen her. Now, looking at the extensive underground tunnels, they understood what had thwarted them.

“When did you make the connection between Ambrosine and the forest rot?” I asked Mercer.

He ran a hand over his tired face and raked it through his sandy hair. “When we found Valory ensnared in the pit. We tried to cut her out, but the growth had become a part of her already. It would have been like cutting off a limb.”

“It smells like the bowels of Galgeth,” Tilmorn said, tracing his thumb absentmindedly along the scars the Moth King had carved on his face—scars that even his gift could not heal. “The very air is toxic. We could only stay minutes at a time before materializing away. The growth was trying to latch